One of the pervasive features of consumer audio and video electronic components in recent years has been and continues to be the handheld remote control. The handheld remote control sends control signals to the controlled device by irradiating the device with infrared energy generated by infrared photo emitter diodes. The controlled device receives a pattern of intermittent irradiation or illumination comprising a control signal.
The remote control unit has stored patterns corresponding to push buttons assigned to various functions of the controlled device. Activating a button causes the excitation of the photo emitter diode according to the stored pattern, thereby generating and transmitting a control signal. Control signals tend to be short words of data representing a low order numeric signal corresponding to some function of the controlled electronic appliance. Conventionally, infrared (IR) remote control units use a carrier frequency of between 10 kHz and 75 kHz. The controlled device receives the signal with a photo detection diode and circuitry that interprets as logical lows and highs the alternating illumination of the photo emitter diode on the remote control unit. Such a signal corresponds to the pattern stored in the remote control unit.
Various manufacturers have selected unique numeric codes to control their devices. This unique coding has allowed differentiation between such devices. For instance, a Brand X VCR will have a limited vocabulary of signals that influence its action. The Brand Y television will have a different limited vocabulary of signals. If a signal is not present within a device's vocabulary, the device will do nothing. With several devices, each having a distinct and limited vocabulary, a single universal remote control can control all of them, distinctly.
Further, it is desirable for the universal remote control to learn macro routines of multiple keystrokes from various remotely controlled devices. For example, a universal remote control can store sequences of commands, such as VCR power followed by VCR play followed by TV power followed by TV audio/video. Such a macro routine would be associated with a macro designation, such as a number. Typically, remote controls with macro functionality include a single key, usually designated a macro key, for accessing macro routines. Thus, the user would only need to press a macro key followed by a desired macro routine number to access an entire sequence of stored keystrokes corresponding to several commands for various remotely controlled devices. This reduces the time required for issuing the several commands, and also reduces the probability of an undesired keystroke being pressed, resulting in an undesired command being issued.
Methods are currently known for programming macros in remote controls. For example, desired commands may be entered directly on a universal remote control as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,426. However, entering commands for remotely controlled devices directly on a universal remote control limits the number of commands for the remotely controlled devices to those command signals that are stored in memory on the universal remote control. Existing universal remotes that have macro capability can only store a sequence of commands if the individual commands are present in the code library in the universal remote.
It is also known to enter command codes for remotely controlled devices in a computer. Once all the commands are entered in the computer, the commands are transmitted from the computer to the universal remote control. A computer's knowledge of remotely controlled devices and their function commands is significantly greater than those that can be stored in a universal remote control on which the macro command sequences are entered directly as described above. Also, the computer's library of remotely controlled devices and their function commands can be easily updated, while those stored on a universal remote control cannot. However, entering the macro sequence on a computer and then transmitting it to the universal remote control requires access to a computer and associated software to learn and transmit the macro sequence.
Thus, there is an unmet need in the art for a universal remote control with a macro capability that is not limited to sequences of commands present in the universal remote control's code library and that does not receive sequences of commands that have been entered separately in a computer.